TITLE: Garth Marenghi's "Prelude to More Revenge of a Sith"FANDOM: The Star Wars universe. Though I think calling it a 'fandom' is in many ways demeaning to George Lucas' vision. 'Imaginarium' might be a better term, or 'shared dreamworld.'AUTHOR: annlarimer Garth MarenghiWORD COUNT: I make every word count.RATING: PG WARNINGS: The level of quality of this 'fanfic' may be more than you are used to.SUMMARY: "Garth Vader stood over the sink of his small bachelor apartment, eating a Pot Noodle." The beginning of a classic, multi-part epic.NOTES: Feedback is welcome, as long as you're not one of those petty, sad little freaks obsessed with "spelling" and "grammar" and "structure." DISCLAIMER: Star Wars is the great George Lucas' gift to the world. Here is my gift to him, to it...and to you, brave traveller.

Garth Marenghi's "Prelude to More Revenge of a Sith"

Garth Vader stood over the sink of his small bachelor apartment, eating a Pot Noodle.

How had it come to this? he wondered. He missed Pamedala and the twins, even though the twins were both girls, Pamedala never having given him the son that he'd wanted so badly. He missed their small, unassuming Coruscant penthouse. Not for its considerable luxury (and it was considerable), for Jedi enlightenment had put him well beyond that sort of petty materialism, even though it was his by natural right, but because it had always been their home, even though the lease was in her name.

He crushed the styrofoam pot with a vise-like hand.

He looked down at his hand. He really would have to go back in and get proper fingers attached. But what with moving out and having to hire a temp to do his day to day admin, he'd had little time for a proper cybernetic refitting. He even still smelled faintly of lava -- a natural, masculine scent, suitable to a man of his muscular strength and animal magnetism.

The medical droids had whined and simpered about "evil" and "madness" and "improperly-fitted brain gaskets," but Vader knew better. He knew better than everyone. He had become so powerful, so enlightened, that he had learned to see beyond petty notions of 'good' and 'evil,' learned that the dark and light sides of the Force were one and the same to a gifted visionary such as himself. It had driven the rest of the Jedi mad with jealousy.

He flipped down his helmet's faceplate, and threw the pot into the trashcyclinator unit.

Surely Pamedala knew that he had done everything for her. The genocide, the child-murder (not his own children, obviously -- he had no problem deciding who lived and who died, but he wasn't an idiot, and female issue was better than none at all), the betrayals, the force-chokings, the systematic annihilation of the Jedi, their support staff, and their parking attendants, the public executions, the lava surfing -- he had done it all for her. He loved her more than any Sith had ever loved a woman. Even while he had force-choked her, he loved her. Maybe he loved her the most when he was force-choking her. The helpless look in her eyes as she had gone blue reminded him of a baby Twi'lek.

She was the only woman he had ever loved, or even slept with. And she had betrayed him, calling security services to escort him out, waving her fancy holographic order of restraint under the bit of helmet where his nose had once been.

Well. The hell with her. He didn't need her. Once he'd destroyed enough planetary systems and their occupants, she'd be begging him to take her back. Instead of screaming in terror at the sight of him, the twins would greet him at the door with masks made from crudely scrawled paper plates and aluminum foil. They would be kind of pathetic-looking masks, of course, but Garth would be kind enough to show the girls how to make proper ones. As the fruit of his not inconsiderable loins, surely they had inhereted something resembling competence, and would be fit enough, perhaps with the help of their husbands, to guard his legacy once he'd passed on.

Smiling to himself inside his mask, he took a beer from the fridge. And a straw.

I have never been in a surfing lava fight, but I know what it would be like; I just know I'd think the smell would stick with you. Not unlike the way the neighborhood always smells like Fourth of July until the next good rain.

book: More if You've Got It; iD; Little Dorrit; America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't; Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes; Death comes to the Archbishop; Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted; The Book of Ice; To Be or Not to Be; Area 51

comics:Captain Marvel; Genshiken; Sailor Moon; Yotsuba!&

teevee: A Touch of Cloth 2

dvd:The World's End; This Hour Has 22 Minutes; Futurama; The Avengers; John Dies at the End